One rather show-stopping issue I've come across with my HTC is that the widgets/home screen tab apps/manila apps/HTC sense apps that get launched from the homescreen do not run as their own tasks. So you can't just switch to, for example, HTC's music player via a task manager. You have to go to the homescreen, and then make sure you're on the right tab. It's slow and clunky and effectively makes the homescreen apps inaccessible, if you like to use your phone for a bunch of other stuff other than what's on the homescreen (ie. you're not staying on the homescreen for everything you do).
Is there something I'm missing? Is there a quick way to switch between homescreen apps from outside of the homescreen?
Thanks,
Simmy
Related
I find the apps menu redundant and I would like to have all my apps directly on the desktop + unlimited screens.
Suggestions are appreciated
errrrrr isnt that just called an iphone......
There's also a launcher called iHome that does this, unfortunately it's far to fancied up for my tastes.
Unfortunately the "great" iOS4 seems to be incapable of handling widgets...
More than 7 home screens would probably hog up all your ram and eat your battery. Just use folders bro.
No it wouldn't, I just want to get rid of the Apps menu. Wherever those shortcuts are they'd eat just as much.
It's not like every desktop has a new wallpaper or something,
So anything, anyone?
My experience with LauncherPro shows that the more home screens there are, the more ram it uses. Maybe it's different with TouchWiz.
I'm guessing you don't like folders on your home screen?
Not bothered by them
I just want to "move" all my things on the home screens so I don't have to go in the apps menu anymore.
And I want to get rid of the apps menu in the process to not waste ram.
This is assuming you have stock android, launcher pro, ADW, Go launcher, how many home screens do you have?
i used to have 7, but started to condense them down to 5. now i think im dropping to 3.
my homescreen (middle one of the 5) is pretty much just an open screen with 2 circle launcher widgets with most commonly used apps.
go one to the right, and its a calendar widget, GV inbox widget, and 3 gmail shortcuts, direct to the inbox of each email address
one more to the right and its all settings shortcuts and commonly used utilities such as root explorer, hot reboot, ATK, rom manager, and mobile signal widget pro widget.
from middle, one to the left is bookmark shortcuts in a folder, a internet traffic app, and an MLB.com app widget.
one more left and its media related stuff like music widget, dsp manager, volume ace widget, voice recorder gallery and directv app.
im thinking i can really just downgrade it to 3 and use folders.
how do you rock your G2 hoescreens?
I only use 3 homescreens. It's quite simple, although I wasn't going for the minimalistic look.
My middle screen has a make your own clock widget, minimalistic text widget with battery percentage and a shortcut to astrid.
Left screen just has an elixir widget with my signal percentages, ram, cpu usage and SD card, etc and a springpad folder of shopping lists.
Right screen is just one big pure agenda widget. I use launcherpro to limit my screens, I've two docks. Main one is just market, gmail (swipe to email), contacts, handcent (swipe to text a certain person) and dolphin browser. Second dock, however, is folders from folder organizer. I have a games folder, internet folder, misc folder (swipe to app list), multimedia folder and tools folder
I use 3 home screens, 2 mostly filled with my most frequently used apps. On the 3rd one I have the power control, starred contacts folder, and the widget for taskiller.
2 screens
i have 2, main screen on image below, other screen is full screen launcher pro facebook, don't need anything else, with CM7 stable and running at 1Ghz the phone is lightning fast
This could be done in the "Post your Home Screen!" thread.
So to give you a bit of a background I have the HTC M8. I use Skydragon rom that is based on Sense 7. I love the Sense interface, especially blinkfeed. I love the ability to swipe my homescreen to the left to access blinkfeed without even having to open any app.
So that's the thing, I'm big on news apps. I'm big on reading up on everything I can, whether it be politics, gaming, college basketball, nba, android development, etc. I have Flipboard and I love the layout, but Flipboard can't really replace Blinkfeed since you have to actually open the app instead of swiping from the homescreen to access it like Blinkfeed. So the question is, is there a way to set up Flipboard like Blinkfeed? I don't mean that in a way of using gestures to open that app, but more like how Blinkfeed works. Is there a way to swipe from the homescreen and open up Flipboard exactly like I do Blinkfeed. Instead of pulling up the app or opening anything, I could just swipe right from my homescreen and see flipboard?
I know you can use widgets and three-finger gestures but thats not nearly the same, nor can they emulate what Blinkfeed can do. To be honest, I'm not sure if it's possible, but I'm also nowhere near an expert (as you can see from my past noob questions.) Would this require a custom rom to even attempt, or what?
Let me know your thoughts because to me this would be an awesome feature
Flipboard created Breifing it's the same as blinkfeed but for samsung only. A better question would be if someone has ported it for use in other roms
Hello,
My Sense Home Widget is not working properly. Pinned items disappear. Also, how am I suppose to add new folders (and apps) to the widget? Every time I remove something some other app automatically gets placed in there. I figured a work around with apps by creating a folder with a current item and the new item then removing the one I don't want... but that is a stupid design. I suppose I could do the same thing and recreate all the folders, but you think it would be easier... why cant I just drag them from another home screen. Anyone else having these issues?
ndstate said:
Hello,
My Sense Home Widget is not working properly. Pinned items disappear. Also, how am I suppose to add new folders (and apps) to the widget? Every time I remove something some other app automatically gets placed in there. I figured a work around with apps by creating a folder with a current item and the new item then removing the one I don't want... but that is a stupid design. I suppose I could do the same thing and recreate all the folders, but you think it would be easier... why cant I just drag them from another home screen. Anyone else having these issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sense Home is designed to automatically populate with the apps that you use most in the particular location you're in. If you want to use it, then just set your locations and use your phone as you normally would in each location and the widget will learn which apps you use where and populate the widget accordingly.
If you want total control, then just place shortcuts directly on your home screens, but you won't have the location-specific feature anymore.
I understand it is meant to auto populate, but that doesn't account for pinned items disappearing or the lack of an intuitive way for manually adding items to that widget.
jollywhitefoot said:
Sense Home is designed to automatically populate with the apps that you use most in the particular location you're in. If you want to use it, then just set your locations and use your phone as you normally would in each location and the widget will learn which apps you use where and populate the widget accordingly.
If you want total control, then just place shortcuts directly on your home screens, but you won't have the location-specific feature anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is anyone else having this issue? Thanks
Hi all, So i as usual installed Nova to use some of their gestures (such as bringing down status bar from swiping down anywhere on screen etc)
In the process i lost access to the google weather widget (as it isn't available through Nova launcher)
Any lightweight suggestions to replace it? or is there any way to get the google weather widget functioning on 3rd party launchers?
What about alternatives to google photos? To be honest i never really used photos , I'm going to try to start doing so but i notice that it doesn't even pick up all my folders such as facebook folder (pics downloaded from facebook).
How do i get it to recognize folders like this ? What other lightweight yet useful gallery app is out there? (not quickpic please that purple font is killing me)
Thanks in advanced!
quickpic version 3.4.9.1 doesnt have pink icons for me and its neutured down so no google drive, dropbox etc linking - just pure gallery.
virtyx said:
quickpic version 3.4.9.1 doesnt have pink icons for me and its neutured down so no google drive, dropbox etc linking - just pure gallery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got a trusted source for that APK?
I am seeing some of the benefits of Google photos though... wondering why i didn't use it sooner
Edit: found a trusted apk for quickpic.
How do I get google weather widget in nova
masri1987 said:
Got a trusted source for that APK?
I am seeing some of the benefits of Google photos though... wondering why i didn't use it sooner
Edit: found a trusted apk for quickpic.
How do I get google weather widget in nova
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i was about to upload
how do you find it? its slim, lightweight, fast - and gets the job done without any extra add-ins which is what i like, almost like the huawei launcher plus you can change the display and it recognizes ALL your images on your phone (im looking at you google photo)
masri1987 said:
Hi all, So i as usual installed Nova to use some of their gestures (such as bringing down status bar from swiping down anywhere on screen etc)
In the process i lost access to the google weather widget (as it isn't available through Nova launcher)
Any lightweight suggestions to replace it? or is there any way to get the google weather widget functioning on 3rd party launchers?
What about alternatives to google photos? To be honest i never really used photos , I'm going to try to start doing so but i notice that it doesn't even pick up all my folders such as facebook folder (pics downloaded from facebook).
How do i get it to recognize folders like this ? What other lightweight yet useful gallery app is out there? (not quickpic please that purple font is killing me)
Thanks in advanced!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too use Nova, for weather, I've been using Weather XL by exovoid for years, link
Action launcher has the Google widget and weather baked in. I switched from Nova to it years ago and while I'll go back to Nova briefly for change of pace purposes I never leave Action for very long. Once I got used to and understood the blinds and shutters features in Action everything else became dad's old launcher; including Nova. You can also set the Now page, assign gestures, all the usual staples of fully featured launchers.
I've used Piktures as my main gallery app for a few years. Great app.
NepoRood said:
I too use Nova, for weather, I've been using Weather XL by exovoid for years, link
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, tried it out, looking for something a bit more lightweight, just for the purpose of widget use.
krabman said:
Action launcher has the Google widget and weather baked in. I switched from Nova to it years ago and while I'll go back to Nova briefly for change of pace purposes I never leave Action for very long. Once I got used to and understood the blinds and shutters features in Action everything else became dad's old launcher; including Nova. You can also set the Now page, assign gestures, all the usual staples of fully featured launchers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So i installed action launcher and I cannot find the option to build out tabs or folders within the drawer itself? Also can't remove the multidot drawer icon and just use the swipe up feature by itself
Cool thing is it did import everything almost from nova
Fuzzy13 said:
I've used Piktures as my main gallery app for a few years. Great app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah i just discovered that app ,
I also discovered that any motion photo or any other like top shot (to show you the whole selection of photos taken) etc doesn't show up in 3rd party gallery apps
You just long press and drag the icon up and out, you'll see the remove label at the top of the screen, drop it there and it's gone. The rest will take a bit of reading as Action doesn't work the way normal launchers do so it takes some explaining. Before I do you can create folders in the drawer section of the home settings, it's under folders. I'm saying this because Action doesn't really work the way Dad's old launcher used to do and there are some new paradigms in play. Don't want to deal with that then just imagine the post ends here.
In action you don't really need to make folders in the drawer as it's laid out to use it's killer features, the covers and shutters. For covers you can drop a shortcut you tap as normal to open that app and then you can also swipe or tap the shortcut and it will open a folder with whatever apps you want inside of it. Those are created by dropping one app onto another to create a folder as with most launchers, open the folder you just created and tap the menu (3 dot), choose create cover and now you have it. Tap the first icon you placed and it will simply open that app, swipe it (or double tap if you select that as the opener) and it will open up the folder underneath. I'm not sure if there is an app limit for the folders, I've had 14 in one now. Using my setup for example I use Hangouts as my personal primary text and instant message app but I also use several others; I have a hangouts cover set in the dock, as its a cover I tap it and open hangouts in most cases. Because it's a cover I have the apps for texting that I use infrequently underneath that which I access by swiping the icon instead. This goes on for all the shortcuts I set in the dock. I use a 2 page dock which is all covers save for one which is a shutter and through those have quick access to 47 applications. Much quicker than finding them in a drawer, even when folder the drawer because you will need more touches to get to the app than with a cover.
The shutter is an app shortcut which you use to either open the app or by swiping it open one of that apps widget. An example would be Whatsapp is my work messaging app. I have the icon set and use it as a shutter. I touch it and go into the app as normal. I get a lot of junk messages though that really aren't for me so sometimes I'll swipe it and open up the unread messages widget. This allows me to skip straight to the more important messages first rather than sort through them all in the app itself. The menu(3 dot) when you first open up the shutter will allow you to select the widget you want to use.
Despite all that you can still access the built in long presses if the app/icon has them. What happens in all this is the app drawer itself becomes more of an initial setup bin where the apps are laying until you set your covers and on the odd occasion you go in there to open a seldom used app. In the rare cases you do need to get into the drawer the sea of icons pulled out of the bottom ala Pixel may look cool but it's slower than using the side drawer which I would highly recommend folks try. While not looking cool it's more efficient; particularly for those with many apps. Still want the bottom drawer pullout it's the default action, just get rid of the shortcut and it's there.
You're going to want to menu dive with Action because there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. You can have it match your wallpaper for the launcher theme in the quick theme section. In quickbar you have what amounts to the Goog searchbar with extra functionality that you can adjust. I don't use it as I find little need for it with all the different ways you can get to the search function and it takes up space which can be better spent showing off my carefully selected wallpaper. The icon pack section is self explanatory. Icon appearance will let you change functions and visual cues like notifications counts. App drawers is where you will decide on trying that side drawer and other related settings. Recommend if you do go to a side drawer to tell it to remember where you left it. Otherwise it will always default to the top of the alphabet. Desktop is where you will do the meat and potatos of setting your desktop, the grid, icon scale, scroll effects, infinite scrolling, etc. One thing of interest in the desktop section is it will allow you to create a quickpage. This is a page you can "pullout" from the side that is separate from simply the page to the right of home. I use it for my travel apps of which I have a fair few but only use during that time. Desktop shortcuts will take you to the settings for which functions will show up when long pressing the home screen out in the open. You'll be able to add typical actions like wallpaper, widgets and so on but also custom actions. Docks is where you'll set up the number of dock pages if any, style of dock, dock seperators (or not), etc. Folders and shutters will allow you to change functions there for those tasks. Shortcuts is where you'll define whatever gestures you want.
While all that seems like a lot when you start fiddling with it it'll start making sense. Sorry for the length of that and I hope it wasn't too boring for those that made it this far.
---------- Post added at 04:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 PM ----------
Oh, yeah... If you use a launcher that allows you to set custom action widgets (Nova, Action Launcher, etc.) you could simply install Action launcher, never use it but get use of the weather widget via custom action in Nova or any other launcher which supports that function.
Huge fan of Today Weather! Can choose which service to receive forecasts from and has a number of widgets.